Global Commitment report 2021 Have we reached the virgin plastics peak?

GLOBAL COMMITMENT REPORT 2021: HAVE WE REACHED THE VIRGIN PLASTICS PEAK?

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and UN Environment Programme’s 2021 Global Commitment Progress Report shows that after decades of growth, virgin plastic use appears to have peaked for Global Commitment brands and retailers, and is set to fall by almost 20% by 2025. Elisabeth Skoda takes a closer look at the report with the Ellen MacArthur Foundation’s New Plastics Economy Programme Manager Lily Shepherd.

Global Commitment brands and retailers have collectively reduced their consumption of virgin plastic in packaging for the second year running, according to new data. Progress is largely driven by recycling.

“We’ve seen a fairly small, but absolute reduction in each of the last two years in terms of use of virgin plastics in packaging. That follows decades of exponential growth in the consumption of virgin plastics by the industry, so feels significant. This year, we’ve introduced reduction targets as a new mandatory requirement to be a brand or a retail signatory of the Global Commitment. We’re expecting those to drive a total decrease of almost 20% between 2018, when we started, and 2025, when our targets run to,” explained Lily Shepherd.

A strong driver for this reduction in virgin materials is a growth in the area of recycled content.

“We’ve seen about 30% growth for the second year in a row with our signatories, so we’ve gone from about 5% across the group weighted average in 2018 to just over 8% in 2020; again, a very positive development.”

When combined with the impact of existing commitments, it is estimated that raising ambitions to this level will avoid eight million tonnes of virgin plastic from being produced each year by 2025. That is equivalent to keeping 40 million barrels of oil in the ground.

More action is needed

While this virgin plastic reduction is a welcome trend, current and planned progress is driven largely by switching from virgin plastic to recycled plastic. This is just one part of the solution, but does not address the total amount of plastic packaging on the market. There is little evidence of ambitious efforts to reduce the need for single-use packaging in the first place. Less than 2% of signatories’ plastic packaging is reusable, and for more than half of all signatories, this is 0%.

Big changes are needed to address this problem, as Shepherd points out.

“We know that we can’t recycle our way out of plastic pollution. Future scenarios involving recycling and disposal alone have been shown to result in higher annual leakage and higher greenhouse gas emissions. To really tackle plastic pollution and to achieve a circular economy for plastics, we are going to need to reduce the total amount of material that is moving through the system. Our signatories and the rest of the industry need to look beyond simply substituting one plastic for another, or perhaps substituting plastics with paper. They need to look at how we can fundamentally redesign the packaging or the product, or the business model to design out the need for single-use packaging altogether.”

This challenge can also be an opportunity for companies, as Dame Ellen MacArthur, Founder & Chair of Trustees at the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, points out.

“[Upstream innovation] doesn’t just allow us to design out waste, it also means we can design out carbon emissions whilst creating new opportunities for business. Shifting just 20% of plastic packaging from single-use to reuse is an opportunity estimated to be worth USD 10 billion.”

The reuse challenge

Drilling deeper into the report, Shepherd observes some progress in the area of reuse when it comes to the number of reuse model pilots reported by signatories.

“We see pilots as a good indicator of early engagement with reuse: the number reported by signatories has gone up year on year by about 50%. About 100 in total reported last year, and it’s 150 this year. That’s positive especially in a year that has been disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic.”

On the flipside, the overall proportion of reusable packaging does remain extremely low.

“Reusable packaging still amounts to less than 2%, and it actually fell marginally between 2019 and 2020. We think that some of that is due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which caused some to move away from reuse models. These changes also take time. However, current efforts don’t really go far enough. Even within businesses that are piloting reuse models, these are often small-scale efforts. A substantial proportion of our signatories, over 50%, are not engaging in pilots at all. We need everybody to take a big step up in terms of the focus and the investment that they are making in reuse models if we want to see this translate into change at scale in the next few years.”

Tackling the climate crisis

A circular economy for plastics can play an important role when it comes to tackling the challenge of cutting CO2 emissions, explains Shepherd.

“The production and the disposal of plastics emits around one billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent per year – the same as the entire airline industry in a normal year. A circular economy for plastics has been shown to have the potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their production use and after use by at least 25% by 2040. As mentioned before, our estimate is that around eight million metric tonnes of virgin plastic will be avoided by 2025, and this will translate to about 13 million tonnes of CO2 emissions avoided. Our signatories cover around 20% of the plastic packaging market. If you were to extend the efforts of our signatory group across the market, you can really see the potential of how this could help alleviate the climate crisis.”

“We’ve seen a fairly small, but absolute reduction in each of the last two years in terms of use of virgin plastics in packaging. That follows decades of exponential growth in the consumption of virgin plastics by the industry.”

Beyond voluntary initiatives to a coordinated global response

Voluntary initiatives like the Global Commitment have begun to deliver change, but it has been recognized by a large number of businesses and countries that voluntary initiatives alone will not be enough. Global Com-

mitment signatories are responsible for just over 20% of global plastics packaging. A coordinated global response is needed, so the entire industry and all governments move at the necessary scale and pace.

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation has observed unprecedented momentum behind a global agreement on plastic pollution. Over 80 leading businesses and 119 national governments have called for a global agreement to tackle plastic pollution, and more than 2 million people have signed a public petition in support.

UNEA 5.2 in February 2022 is the crucial moment, when governments will decide on next steps, including whether to start an intergovernmental negotiation for a global agreement.

Calls to action

The Ellen MacArthur Foundation urges businesses to continue to play their part.

“We hope that more companies will join our signatories in setting absolute targets to reduce the amount of total plastic or virgin plastic contained in packaging. We consider this as the ‘new normal’ of what should be expected of a business trying to actively tackle the changes around plastics, and secondly, to really step up that focus and investment in phasing out single use packaging altogether,” adds Shepherd.

For governments, the Ellen MacArthur Foundation sees two big priorities for the years ahead when it comes to moving beyond just voluntary agreements.

“Policy has the potential to help capture that remaining 80% [of the plastics packaging market], to help align governments in an approach to support them and to level the playing field for businesses. Our first call to action is to capitalize on this unique opportunity to build on momentum towards a global treaty on plastics. We’re seeing substantial support from the business community for that, and over 100 countries have specifically expressed support for starting negotiations on a global agreement in 2022.”

The second call to action relates to the roll out of an Extended Producer Responsibility policy for packaging.

“We’ve had substantial expression of support from the business community, with over 100 leading businesses explicitly publicly recognizing that EPR is the only proven way to ensure sufficient funding for collecting, sorting and recycling packaging. Governments can hopefully build on this very strong signal to accelerate implementation of this policy. Eight out of nine of the national governments who report to the Global Commitment have already indicated that they’re planning to implement those policies by 2025.” n

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